I adore my dog. I have like two dozen pet names for her: best friend, lovebug, and of course, variation after variation on her given name.

She listens to my problems. She loves walks, snuggling, and play. She’s stubborn, she’s silly, and she’s very good at jumping. Whether she’s jumping over the back of the couch or across someone’s lap, she always manages to land with the delicacy of a housecat or professional athlete.

We have lived together for nearly a year. There are just a few troubles in our relationship, although like any relationship, sometimes those few troubles loom large.

There’s one level of incompatibility in our sleep schedule: I am a night person, and my dog is a morning person. She would be delighted if I woke up at 4 a.m. to go for a run. I would be delighted if she slept in until 7 a.m. We’ve compromised with breakfast at 6 and a walk that usually comes much later in the day.

Unfortunately, we both love shoes. I love to wear them; she loves to chew on them. I have lost count of the shoes destroyed.

I know that I have purchased more pairs of shoes in the last year than in the previous one. I keep putting off buying new tennis shoes, because I bought new walking shoes in September, only for the inner shoe—cushion and lining—to be ripped out of one two weeks after I walked them home.

The walking shoes are still sitting forlornly in the closet. In theory, perhaps I can find a way to fix the missing inner cushion. In practice, I do not know how to fix broken shoes or where to take them, and they do not rank high enough on the to-do list to be done.

Instead of buying new tennis shoes, I am walking around in a pair of beaten-down $20 sneakers purchased in 2017. The chewed-up work shoes, I did replace—although after getting in the habit, I’m still wearing the beaten-up tennis shoes to work half the time. Old or not, worn-out tennis shoes are very comfortable—that is if you don’t need to actually do anything active in them.

However, my dog has not destroyed a pair of shoes in at least three months, maybe four. I cannot tell if she has outgrown this phase of destruction or if I have only gotten better at leaving my shoes out of reach. There’s a whole new shoe storage system next to my front door, to avoid the expense and heartbreak of half-eaten shoes.

I am especially cautious with my nicer shoes. I have a beloved pair of hiking boots that lived in my car trunk for six months after the shoe deaths began, for fear they would be next. In the last few months, the hiking boots have migrated back to the closet.

Still, I side-eye my dog if she approaches a pair of shoes. I have no faith she will not eat them.

She’s very good at destruction, my dog. She could put destroying household objects right at the top of her resume.

Expertise in destroying shoes, dog toys, chewing up the straps on bags, eating holes into mattresses and especially proficient at chewing up the foam in couch cushions.

Destroying objects is a fairly normal part of young, energetic dog behavior.

The smaller worry with dog destruction is the expense of replacing broken objects. The larger worry with dogs that like to chew up your belongings is that the dog will injure itself by eating something that cannot work through its digestive system. The surgical solution to an object stuck in the digestive system is expensive, and I imagine if it were your dog, it would also be quite scary.

Fortunately, as much as my dog enjoys destruction, she also manages not to eat the objects she destroys (as far as I can tell).

I can see why people keep telling me that dogs make a good dress run for children. While a dog requires much less maintenance, expense and time than a child, you do get used to property destruction and accustomed to planning your sleep schedule around someone else’s needs.

Perhaps she’ll outgrow the destructive phase entirely, as some objects she’s begun to leave alone. Table and chair legs are no longer of interest. Shoes seem to be less enticing. She still cannot be trusted with a mattress, and the couch cushions have all been wrapped in blankets to keep her away from the foam. Buying a couch to replace the damaged one seems useless, as I imagine within a few months it would be similarly damaged.

Perhaps she just needs more 4 a.m. runs. Of course, when I can’t sleep at 4 a.m., or I need to share secrets or snacks with someone, my dog is an excellent friend to have around.

Cathy Cook | El Defensor Chieftain Editor